In recent years, a portable terminal such as a GPS equipped smartphone having an advanced functionality substantially serves as, for example, an in-vehicle navigation apparatus for providing route guidance to a driver. In other words, as disclosed in Japanese patent document JP-A-2011-507078 ('078), the portable terminal can be cooperatively used with an in-vehicle apparatus, displaying, on a display unit of the in-vehicle apparatus, a map screen generated by the portable terminal when, for example, the portable terminal is used in a vehicle and the portable terminal is coupled to an ECU of the vehicle. In such manner, the route guidance is provided to the user of the vehicle even when the in-vehicle apparatus is not equipped with a navigation function.
Further, the function of the portable terminal is not limited to a navigation function, as described above. For instance, the portable terminal used in the vehicle may also serve as an audio/visual player. In any case, when the ECU of the vehicle realizes a function in the above-described manner, such function is dependent on the normal operation of the portable terminal. As a result, when an application on the portable terminal crashes, the portable terminal dependent function, such as the navigation function, is terminated on the vehicle side.
Therefore, after a crash of the application on the portable terminal, the application needs to be resumed or restarted with various parameters and/or information inputted again for a re-execution of the application by the portable terminal, which is cumbersome for the driver/user and a may delay the activation of the function. That is, for example, after the crash of a navigation application, the user needs to input parameters, such as a destination or a waypoint, to set an execution condition of the navigation application, such as a route to the destination. Such re-inputting of the setting information and re-setting the execution condition of the application may be cumbersome for an occupant, especially for a driver of the vehicle.